A dip of misadventure into Bengaluru lake

Back in the 1950s, Bengaluru was a one-horse town, filled with gardens, lakes and wide open spaces. With buses and auto-rickshaws rare, kids ambled to school and adults biked to offices and factories. Cycle-rickshaws and horse-drawn tongas offered unhurried rides for a song, as life moved on the slow lane.

During the school vacations, the kids’ laughter and playful shouts filled the air. The call of adventure tempted teenagers to explore the vast open spaces beyond the town. Another favourite pastime was playing street games with friends or visiting relatives who lived elsewhere.

Once during a weekend, a relative (who must remain unnamed) and his boisterous friends planned a trip to a lake on the periphery of the town. The water body lay beside a rocky terrain.

Having spent some time on the rocks chit-chatting, the boys, feeling cheeky, tossed their clothes onto the sun-baked rocks and plunged into the lake. The youngsters splashed around gleefully. Fuelled by a sense of adventure, they swam further, leaving their clothes unattended.

Back at the rocks, their clothes came under scrutiny of some urchins, who smelled a chance to make off with the clothes, and did. Soon, the swimmers returned and not spotting their clothes, raised an alarm.

Their adventure had taken an unexpected turn. After a long wait and much shouting, they gave up hope of getting their clothes back. They decided to wait for sunset before emerging from the water.

Emerging after dark, they found scraps of cardboard boxes and newspaper to cover themselves, and began their nervous trek home, coming under curious scrutiny of few passers-by and some cyclists on the streets.

Meanwhile, because of my relative’s absence, his mother was frantic. When her cardboard box-clad son finally arrived, she couldn’t believe what she saw. To my relative’s luck, his dad, who was in the Army, was away to another town. So he got away lightly for his folly. My relative and his friends did go back to the lake again, yet the memory of their earlier misadventure kept them on their toes.

NJ Ravi Chander, Bengaluru